Wales v Argentina: Rugby World Cup 2023 quarter-final – live

And just like that, the business end of the Rugby World Cup is here, literally kicking off with this match in Marseille.

2022 is another country for Wales. Life under the Wayne Pivac regime was a strange hotchpotch, never more emphasised than the first ever away win in South Africa being closely followed by a loss at home to Georgia. Each match had the suspicion of watching a drunk man with a kebab inevitably pitching onto the concrete just fifty metres shy of his house. The loss to the Lelos in Cardiff was enough to send one Kiwi on his way, while in the distance another returned; slowly ambling into focus like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, but in a beige dad-suit and crew cut.

Warren Gatland was back, and there was a hint in the World Cup warm-up matches that the time the squad spent in his physically torturous summer camp was translating into a plan. A plan to be rid of the disquiet of Pivac’s time, instil some confidence and construct a gameplan fit for the task of getting out of Pool C: WarrenBall 5.0.

The plan has worked and then some. Cymru have tackled, kicked and competently set-pieced their way to one the highest point totals in the pools, finishing top and now facing Argentina in a Quarter Final.

Los Pumas are the anti-Wales in this World Cup. Michael Cheika’s side were a logical shout to top Pool D; confident coming in after an historic twelve months or so featuring victories over New Zealand, England and Australia while narrowly missing out on a Springbok scalp. Then the boot of George Ford and a tenacious England defensive effort rendered the whole team witless in a hideously lumbering performance in round one. Slowly, they have built from the rubble, getting better each week and culminating in an entertaining victory over Japan to seal their appearance in this fixture. At core, however, they still appear fragile in defence, something that cannot be said about Wales.

The previous three tournaments have seen one of these sides lose a semi final, in a few hours we’ll know who gets another chance to go one better.